Divine Tree, 1
~The Founder Appears~
Japanese Title:
神樹１ 〜教祖登場〜
Shinju Ichi ~Kyousou Toujou~
Original Air Date:
26 October 2022
The next day, Mob calls out to Mezato before school: what happened to their plans yesterday? She forgot, and apologizes for dragging him into all this Psycho Helmet nonsense... Tome also somehow... forgot? and announces a new purpose for the Telepathy Club, to the other members' dismay. Mob reviews the founder audition footage with Reigen, who shares his hypothesis about the source of the plant roots disintegrating all these buildings: The Divine Tree. It must be uprooted. After all, both of them bear some responsibility for its presence.
Psycho Helmet faithful have gotten even more intrusive in their efforts to feed the very substance of the enormous broccoli to the city's people: candies, desserts, even croquettes, handed out at every turn. The student council, at member Makihara's insistence, will be instituting a daily prayer session; Ritsu and Tokugawa are the only dissenters. Someone has graciously given Teru a box of homemade cookies made from the Tree. On first taste, he realizes something is very wrong and immediately leaves to confront what- or whomever is in the Broccoli himself...
Minegishi has also realized that something is wrong: many of the plants in the florist's shop where they work are dying. When their unconcerned boss sends them on a break, they connect the strange plant death and the aggressive roots to the Tree, elect to take matters into their own hands, and collapse on the pavement, severely weakened... where the proprietor finds them a beat later.
Mob is now certain he's being watched. It's clear that he and Reigen will need some help for Reigen's plan; they enlist Ritsu, but the younger Kageyama succumbs after eating some Divine Tree candy. He leads the two straight into a meeting of Psycho Helmet Faith adherents, who gently implore them to reconsider. They run for the hills, but somehow every other soul they encounter already knows what they're planning... and Reigen has been turned too. Mob has had enough of being gaslighted by an entire city and sets off, now entirely on his own, to make things right.
Tropes appearing in this episode include:
- Brainwashed: Mob's friends and allies are brainwashed into worshipping the Divine Tree after ingesting food made from it. Tome has lost interest in UFOs entirely in favor of the Tree, while Mezato no longer believes that Mob is responsible for the Tree's existence; she alludes to a meeting to settle the founder question prior to the live stream.
- Eye Scream: In his own bid to take down the Divine Tree, Teru hurls sharpened chunks of it at Dimple, lacerating his flesh. A fairly large one pierces his eye.
- Extreme Close-Up: This episode contains a great many of these for maximum claustrophobic tension. Some examples:
- Minegishi's eyes fill the screen as they mentally connect the dying plants in and around the florist's shop, the rapidly-spreading roots breaking the concrete, and the Divine Tree.
- Multiple shots of Mob's horrified eyes and Reigen's face as they evade brainwashed citizens.
- Mob clutching his chest as it sinks in that even his shishou has been turned against him. The camera focuses on his hand gripping his gakuran and his mouth, twisting in distress.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Implied; Dimple's newfound strength is due to the vast number of Psycho Helmet congregants. As their prayer strengthens the Tree, Dimple taps into the accumulated energy. Without their prayer, Dimple is an ordinary 'high-level evil spirit'.
- Hive Mind: One room of followers is alerted to Reigen's Operation Divine Weed Killer... and all other citizens touched by the leaves of the Tree know, too. They point accusing fingers from benches and watch Mob and Reigen from around corners, in order to shame the duo into standing down.
- Stealing the Credit: Zigzagged and downplayed.
- As the Psycho Helmet Faith arose from Mob's floating Dimple's followers out of harm's way while taking the spirit out, Mob has the most legitimate claim to it, but his ambivalence about leading a cult and his Acquired Situational Narcissism from the previous episode convince Dimple to seize the title of founder for his own aims.
- Over the credits, Dimple magnanimously shares credit for founding the religion with Mob as the child advances on the Tree. The townspeople lavish adoration on him, but aside from his explosion counter percentage jumping up a few notches, the boy is patently unmoved by it.
- Spiteful Spit: Teru to Dimple, as an aside, right before he promises to obliterate the spirit for good.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Reigen gets carried away lecturing Mob on the importance of the Divine Tree to people's happiness... and doesn't notice that the boy is no longer standing before him until he opens his eyes.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Downplayed; we see Divine Tree-laced cookie vomit flowing into the sink without being treated to the sight of Teru sticking his fingers down his throat once he understands how the brainwashing works. We do get a shot of Teru rinsing his mouth out in rather graphic fashion, though.
